awards

Film description

Life in this Brazilian middle-class urban neighborhood seems all in order. A single family owns most of the homes and the tenants act cooperatively in their determination to wall themselves off from the outside world. When a private security company offers its services, it is unclear who should be protected against what. Do the new security guards really guarantee the residents’ security?

This film is exceptionally cohesive. From the opening shots, the director builds a world whose particular components reinforce and supplement each other. The modern impersonal architecture becomes a metaphor for the characters’ emotions – behind the high fences run empty narrow corridors filled by the eponymous ‘neighbouring sounds’. The sounds impact the imagination by seeding fear. The atmosphere of terror intensifies with each shot, making the audience want to disentangle itself from this reality, while the director deftly twists the plot, increases the uncertainty, and progressively enmeshes us in his game.

Information about director

Kleber Mendonça Filho

Kleber Filho was born in 1968 in Recife (northeastern Brazil) a place he remains associated with. Filho began as a film critic and programmer of an experimental cinema in Recife. He began directing in the 1990s and has produced many award-winning shorts. Neighbouring Sounds,his feature debut, premiered at the 2012 Rotterdam Film Festival.